Socio-Economic Status
References
APA. (2014). Education & socioeconomic status. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/factsheet-education.aspx
Dickinson, E., & Adelson, J. (2014). Exploring the Limitations of Measures of Students' Socioeconomic Status (SES). Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 19(1-4), 1-14.
Jesson, R., McNaughton, S., & Kolose, T. (2014). Investigating the summer learning effect in low SES schools. Australian Journal of Language & Literacy, 37(1), 45-54.
NCLD. (2014). IDEA 2004 final regulations update. Retrieved from http://www.ncld.org/disability-advocacy/learn-ld-laws/idea-2004-final-regulations-update.
Rouse, C.E. and Barrow, L. (2006). U.S. elementary and secondary schools: equalizing opportunity or replicating the status quo? Opportunity in America, 16(2). Pp. 99-123.
Advocating
*Putting students from various socio-economic statuses into the same school is going to cause frustration but there needs to be time for readjustment.
*The socio-economic status of a family is being used as the foundation for a child's educational career and the basis for the opportunities they will receive.
*Children are leaning at a young age that money is the driving factor in determining where you will go in life and what opportunities you will be given.
*Let's teach out children that their knowledge, their passion, and their creativity is going to be what determines their future and where they go in life.
Summer Learning Effect
Higher SES students
Lower SES students
Are we doing a disadvantage to our higher SES students' by having them attend the same school and be put into the same classes as students of lower SES?
"Research indicates that children from low-SES households and communities develop academic skills more slowly compared to children from higher-SES groups" (APA, 2014).
"The term 'summer learning effect' (SLE) is used to describe the situation that often occurs in schools serving low socio-economic communities, where achievement plateaus or declines over summer. The effect differentially affects students from low socio-economic status communities and from some cultural groups and creates a barrier to equity that gets larger over time" (Kolose, 2014).
Setting our children up for failure?
Family SES
Children cannot help the socio-economic status of their family; therefore, their educational opportunities should not be determined by this either.
"Socio-economic status is often measured as a continuous variable, a single score derived from some combination of income, education, and occupation" (Dickison, 2014).
The opportunities for children, both inside school and outside of school, is often determined by a families' socio-economic status.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Biological and Psychological Needs
Biological and Pyschological Needs
If students from all socio-economic statuses were allowed to attend schools with equal opportunity, data rich resources, and consistency among their teachers, would we see the achievement gap decline? Could students from all walks of life actually learn something from one another? Could their hardships and strengths bring about a learning environment that can't be taught through textbooks or through classrooms where students of the same SES are at?
According to Maslow, the basic needs of air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex and sleep must be met in order for an individual to progress up the pyramid and fulfill their other needs.
Students from poverty are often not having their needs met at home and are then forced to go to lower-income schools where fewer resources are provided and the turn-over rate of staff is high.
IDEA 2004
IDEA 2004
Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004
This law is beneficial to students of all socio-economic statuses because it ensures that they receive research-based interventions, no matter what, if they have a documented learning disability (NCLD, 2014).
The amending and mandating of this law ensures that income cannot be a basis for school districts determining the resources the students or families are given.
"Provides extensive direction on the procedures for identifying children with learning disabilities" (NCLD, 2014).
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